One Treasured Loser
by MangaTheatreShanPrincess
Summary: When WWII finally ends, everyone blames Germany for the current crisis. His ally, North Italy, has invented a silly game hoping it will restore his happiness. What is this game? GerIta.
1. Prologue

**Warning:** GerIta yaoi. Minor Spamano. Swearing, emotional scenes and spoilers for Buon San Valentino. **NO LEMON.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. There is poetry, but all poetry in this fic is self-written.

**A special 'thankyou' goes to Hirako and Accado of The WonderNeePoos YouTube Channel for their brilliant cosplay videos - in particular, "Funny Game" and "Suzuki San" which have both inspired me to write this fanfic. You two are the best!**

All reviews welcome!

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><p><span><strong>PROLOGUE: The Art of Losing.<strong>

The act of losing wasn't hard to master. At least in North Italy's case, the fact was true. I suppose he thought of being a loser to be the easiest way of escaping trouble. After all, he had spent most of his life being that affectionately weak, pasta-loving coward whom everybody knew. Even after World War I ended, the fact that he was a universal dunce just didn't matter to him any more.

North Italy hadn't always been a loser. The way in which it came to be was this: once upon a time, during the Renaissance era, he was a lucky country who had been given everything; blessed with good farmland and a culture of fine arts, architecture and great food and festivals. It was mostly because he had inherited the fortune of his grandfather Rome, who happened to be one of the most powerful nations in the world at that time. During his youth, while Italy was living in his house, Rome taught him every subject he knew: Languages and literature, religion, mathematics, philosophy, cooking as well as visual art and music. He was a rather precocious child, so often Rome would ruffle his fringe with a delighted laugh and tell him, "an intelligent mind will always be a tidy mind."

This was all that passed between them for every subject. So when Old Rome passed away, Italy was forcibly taken to The House Of The Holy Roman Empire, condemned to the maid's quarters to scrub dirty floors. Though he was often bullied or yelled at by other nearby nations, he was welcome there (at least it seemed so) even though the house was once ruled by Rome's hateful rival, Germania. Without his grandpa as a backbone to rely on, young Italy was a flop, and he knew he would never be the same again.

Fast forward in time to the 20th Century, during the 1940's. The former Nazi Germany sat on his knees, sweeping away the filth that piled up in corners. He peered across the dingy art studio towards his ally, who was lying on the old moth-eaten sofa among unfinished canvases and old sketchbooks.

"Italy," he said. No response.

"Oi, Italy," he said, raising his voice a little louder. Again, no response.

He then repeated his name a third time and again, he was met with no response. If Germany had to call Italy's name more than three times, he must be both deaf _and _blind.

"ITALY!"

The clumsy Italian startled with a upright jolt - looking at Germany for a second before toppling to the ground. The sound of paper rustled and crumpled. A cloud of dust escaped into the air.

"Ve, ve, ve, ve…"

Germany sighed. "How many times do I have to say your name before you answer me?" he snapped. "Do you ever pay attention to anything?"

"Ve," said Italy. His voice rose from the depths of the floor. "I'm sorry, Germany, really! Please don't be mad at me, I didn't mean─"

"It doesn't matter," said Germany. "Just don't tell me you forgotten your plans already! This was all_ your_ idea!"

"No, no, I do remember…."

"Then you finish what you start!"

"But I-I I lost something," said Italy, spinning a paintbrush in hand. "You are helping me."

"Helping!"

"I lost something special to me..."

"Well, get off the couch and find it, then. I've no clue where to look."_  
><em>

"Ve, ve..."

He swept up some more dusty debris into a bin-bag, then raised his voice into a yell. "I might be your helper but I'm no house maid! I refuse to hang _your_ dirty laundry!"

Putting aside his paint palette, Italy crawled past the sofa; opened a new set of cupboard doors. He started digging through them and a flood of old manuscripts and used draft paper and research documents came flooding out like a waterfall. New clouds of dust particles exploded like feather bombs in the air.

To a nation like Germany (who always expected everything to be pin-neat) the perplexing thing was the fact Italy had never bothered to organise these archaic documents at all... and it left him astounded as to how he could live in such chaos without suffering from an asthma attack. Surely living in deranged living-conditions like this couldn't be healthy, right?

Of course not. But the real question was... why_ couldn't _he do any of the tidying himself?

None of this was surprising. Typically, he was the sort of person who couldn't keep his possessions together for five minutes at most. It was true that Italy lived inside his head, constantly lost in the mental library of his scatterbrained thoughts. As you can imagine, his method of finding things - that is, wading through towering piles of mess - was not very efficient. And Germany couldn't help but understand why.

Two minutes later, Italy kept on digging his way through the old cabinet - momentarily hacking a dry cough into his elbow from the stuffy air. Old files came flooding out, along with more grey filthy debris. And then, suddenly came a high, piercing, banshee squeal loud enough to shake the room.

"What the flipping hell is wrong _now_?"

Italy shrank back, shivering. His half-closed eyes began to prick with babyish tears. "Hyaaaah! Come here Germany, help me! Help me please!"

Waving the air and coughing from the dust, the former Nazi struggled to his knees. He started crawling towards the cupboard, edging past another high pile of outdated documents. Once he got to the cupboard, Italy jumped and grabbed his arm tightly, burying his face to his chest – forcing a shocked Germany to the ground.

"Ow...Mein Gott!" he said, pushing him away. "What are you doing? Trying to make me suffocate?"

"But it's not here!" Italy whimpered. "Please, Germany, help me, help me! Or I'm going to die!"

"Get off!"

He pushed him away and got up again, to see only another build up of dusty cobwebs inside … and some other debris that looked like a mix of hair and greyish fur. For a moment he hoped it was just fluff and not the plague.

He shifted his gaze all around the room, at all the dust and the fur and mess that surrounded him and his ally. Shaking his head, he sat to one side and sighed.

"Italy," he said.

"Si?"

"What exactly are we looking for?"

At that moment, Italy looked up at his ally. He was still half-clinging to him like a little monkey to a tree. In the spring light from the window, it seemed the colour drained from his face. He drew in his breath and hung his head.

"I've lost my pasta…" were all the words he managed to say.

**[CUE: HETALIA BEAUTIFUL WORLD - OPENING THEME]**


	2. The Beginning Of The End

** The Beginning**

On the eighth day of May 1945, the last thing that Germany wanted was noise to intrude his thoughts. One moment, he was sat down on a park bench with his head in his hands - wishing for a moment of silence while the children around him played tag on the playground. The next, he was interrupted by the voice of his annoying Italian partner.

"Germany! Germany!" said North Italy. "Where are you?"

_Ugh._ What on earth did he need now? Why did that silly, useless idiot of a nation have to follow him everywhere he went? These days, Italy was a dog on an invisible lead. No matter where he went, his former Axis ally seemed to find his footsteps everywhere. He'd saved his sorry ass more than enough times in the war already anyway.

"ITALY!"

"Ve!" Italy yelped. "Ve, ve, ve…"

"What are you doing?" he said. "Don't you have a life of your own, in your own country?"

Italy nodded. But then his smile faded. He hung his head. "_No_…"

Germany got up from the bench and began walking ahead. "Just leave me alone," he said. "I'm not interested at the moment."

"B-b-but…"

"Italy, I said leave me _alone_!"

Italy then ran ahead onto the pathway, stopping Germany in his tracks. It was only then when he got a close-up of his face. He saw a sense of concern written all over his expression. With that sort of emotion, there was no chance that Italy was going to leave him alone like he had instructed him to do so.

"Fine…" he said. "What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Italy said.

Germany sighed. "Then if you don't need my help, don't waste my time."

"I only want to know what's wrong with you."

"Italy, don't be silly," said Germany. "I am fine─"

"You're not having a good day, are you…?" Italy persisted. He couldn't just give up now. "Not since losing the war and the fortune and everything else…."

"It's too late now," he said. "There is nothing we can do."

He headed back towards the park bench and sat down again – biting the inside of his lip, face in his hands. But he felt no tears coming. He had learned for centuries that crying and tears were for weaklings. Defeat was one thing, failure was another. The words sunk in his mind and drummed in his head over and over like poison swimming in his veins... at which he was now dying a slow, torturous death_. _

"Surely there must be something to cheer you up?" Italy asked. "Maybe I could buy us some gelato? Gelato always makes me feel better. And I'll pay."

"_Nein_."

"The bookshop? France gave me a book-tag…"

"_Nein_."

"How about that music library near Austria's house? I bet there's a new cello piece you could learn─"

_Shoot. _Just when Germany was all caught up wallowing in his sadness and disillusion, he forgot all about his cello practice. Back in October last year, Austria had given him sheet music from JS Bach's Six Cello Suites for his birthday. He needed to get home quick so he could do his daily two-hour dose of relaxation before the late afternoon ran away into the night. Having remembered that, all Italy was doing now was holding up his day.

_"_ITALY!"

Italy's face fell. "Ve…"

"Don't you ever shut up?" Germany said. He rose from the bench. "I told you five minutes ago I want to be left alone. I need─"

"Oi, Veneziano! Where are you off to?"

At that moment, North Italy whipped his head round to find the face that belonged to the voice. He knew that voice anywhere. And there he was, his obnoxious elder brother South Italy, otherwise known as Romano, walking hand-in-hand with his partner Spain.

"_Ciao_!" he chirped. "How's everything, Romano, Spain…"

"_Hola,_ Ita-chan…_" _

But then Romano half-smile faded into a glare. He made a lunge at the familiar blonde nation standing behind his little brother. The German jerked his head - barely in enough time to miss a hard slap to the face. As he felt the tingling pain growing in his right cheek, he leaned against the nearest tree – a dizzy, starry blackness clouding his vision. He shook his head a few times, but it took many moments for the dizziness to fade.

"Stay _away_ from my little brother, you macho potato bastard!" yelled Romano. "I've had enough of your outrageous Nazi Party antics to last me till the next flipping millennium, dammit!"

North Italy seized his brother's shoulders. "Romano nii-chan…" he said. "Germany is a nice guy! Don't hurt him!"

Romano glowered at his little brother. "I don't care!" He pushed him away. "That jerk deserves it! Now get your hands off me before I slap you, Veneziano, because I hate you, too! CHIGI!"

"Hey, hey!" said Spain. "Stop that! Are you trying to murder someone?"

Romano turned around, transferring his gaze to Spain, who was digging around in his satchel bag. After a moment, he produced a small branch of vine tomatoes and pressed them his palm. He stared at the floor in refusal.

"I'm not hungry, dammit."

"That's the last bunch if you want it, Mister Grumpy-Ass," he said. Romano sighed, then reluctantly he plucked one from the vine and bit into it. Spain flashed a relieved smile. Since tomatoes were Romano's one true weakness, offering them was his way of trying to quieten him whenever he got cranky. And it worked every single time.

_His favourites, _North Italy thought. No _wonder _why Romano spent nearly all of his waking hours at Spain's house - especially just of late. Everyone knew that Spain owned an entire field of tomatoes just for he and Romano, which apparently they had been cultivating together since they were young.

_Thank goodness for Spain._

He then turned to Italy. "We're on our way home from the meeting," he said. "We're planning to go clean out my garden later, and maybe plant some new herbs. Unless you wanna come over and help too, Ita-chan?"

"_Whatever_, dammit," Romano muttered.

Italy transferred his gaze to Germany, who was once again sitting on the bench. "Ve...That's kind of you, Spain, but, I'm sorry…"

Spain shrugged. "What a shame." He then began to walk ahead on the footpath. "Better luck next time. _Adios, _then. Romano, you coming or not?"

"Hmph… I suppose," said Romano. "Hey, don't walk so fast, you bastard…!"

And then, finally, they were gone.

Italy turned around in the opposite direction, heading back down the path towards the bench where Germany sat. Momentarily he looked up - opening his eyes slightly the vast sky of wispy grey clouds. They seemed to move past the golden sun, inviting a chill in the air. He shivered a little, before sitting back on the bench once again. He could still hear his heart pounding hard inside his chest, still lit with shock from his brother's slap.

"Ve…." he said. "Germany, Germany! Talk to me!"

"Has Spain ever bothered to teach that nation some manners?" said Germany, after a moment of silence.

"I know," said Italy. "I'm sorry... Are you hurt?"

Germany wrung his hands. "_Nein! Nein, nein, nein_..." he chanted, on the verge of yelling. He beat his fist gently, fiercely on his knee. "Hitler and his Nazi antics were just another disastrous mess waiting to happen! Other nations have done worse things in the war and yet I am still blamed for everything."

He sniffed. "Don't you understand?" he said. "Do you have any idea how _humiliating_ it is to lose _two _world wars in the space of _ONE century? _For a nation that is unheard of!"

"Awww, Germany..." Italy said, stroking his back. "Don't be like that..."

For that moment they were silent, Italy opened his eyes again, just slightly. He intently watched the cleaner near the playground, raking away fallen flowers. To the kids on the play equipment he was invisible. It was only at that moment when he remembered.

The act of losing wasn't hard to master…. In Italy's case, that is. That was the one thing that amazed Germany – the fact Italy was a loser and didn't much care. Come to think of it, while sitting on the bench together in the broad afternoon daylight, they were both losers. But even then Germany now was about as bad as Italy was… or worse.

"I know what we can do!" he said, jumping up. "How about we play a game?"

Germany looked up. "What kind of game?"

"Ve…" His smile graced his ally's lips. "You like cleaning, don't you? So we can play a cleaning game! It's a challenge."

"A cleaning challenge…?" he echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"Exactly," said Italy. "You know how you're always scolding me for being such a mess - for never putting my things away, and how I can never find my possessions…"

There was no doubt about that. He remembered whenever he went to visit Italy, he always saw chaos in some degree in every room. He saw sauce spills on the kitchen bench, unread books in the living room gathering dust, crumpled clothes strewn about on his bedroom floor… it was no wonder why a scatterbrained nation like Italy couldn't keep his possessions together for more than five minutes.

He brightened a little at the thought. "If this is going to benefit both of us," he said. "Tell me the rules."

* * *

><p><strong>[CUE: 'HETALIA']<strong>


	3. SPAMANO: Chibi-Romano's Morning

**SCENERY BREAK – SpaMano Segment**

**Chibi-Romano's Morning**

"Romano!" Spain called. "Romano! Where are you hiding?"

_Dear diary,_

_All nations, like common human folk, have their own jobs. In Spain's case, he's a food-farmer. Namely, a tomato picker. Call it what you want, I can't consider farming as real job. All he ever does is sit back, let the tomatoes grow in their field... And then in summer when the tomatoes are ready we pick them before shipping them to the city for packaging. Apart from that he doesn't do much except cook and clean, teach Spanish and water the plants._

_ Farming. It's a typical poor man's job, working in the hot sun day after day. Other than that, he has another full time job of kid-wrangling and house keeping. All because of me..._

"Romano!" Spain's voice floated through the foyer. "Come out, come out wherever you are! Once I find you, I'm going to get you!"

Upon hearing his voice, young Romano immediately ducked under the desk in his boss' study. He hid his notebook and pen under his chest and lay still as a plank, in the hope Spain wouldn't find him here, writing in his diary. The house was quiet, and he wished he was the only person awake.

This notebook was his guilty secret.

So while the coast was still clear, he set his pen to paper.

_Sometimes, at the end of a long day, he would get me to cuddle up next to him while he tells me these weird, wacky stories about his past life. He would tell me these wonderful things, like the fact he was a pirate once blessed with all the riches in the world. __Pfft… What the heck am I even saying?... Yeah right, like I would believe in such stupidity. (Oh, and by the way, it's seven in the morning and I'm still half-asleep.)_

_I know *that* story off by heart, although I can't tell if he's being serious or just joking. Like how Spain always is. Apparently some idiot named England had him beaten. His fortune was stolen and he was thrown into poverty. Ever since then, Spain's been doing the same boring, tedious job since the day I came─_

"Ha! There you are!" said Spain. He gestured to the red-leather notebook in his arms. "What's that you're writing? Are you studying?"

Romano slammed his notebook shut. "It's nothing that _you_ need to know, silly bastard!"

Spain laughed. "I didn't expect you to be in here at this time of the morning," he said. "What are you doing? I spent the last five minutes searching up and down the house for you!"

"The sun woke me up too early, stupid jerk."

Spain smiled. "You hungry? Breakfast is ready." He paused, then looked out the window at the tomato field in the distance. "The harvest season's coming soon. I'm planning to make a fresh batch of tomato sauce today, which means you get to be the taste-expert."

"Again?" Romano rolled his eyes. "Like _that's _nothing new. I'll do it, and it had _better_ be good this time, dammit." He glanced at his notebook and sighed, whining, "Can't you go away? I'm busy!"

"Sure, sure," he said. "Finish whatever you're doing and then come downstairs when you're ready." And then he turned on his heel and backed out of the room.

The moment Spain left, Romano flipped his open his notebook again to jot down another sentence.

_I never thought I'd say this... but if that story was really true – I'd think he deserves something better than this stinking shit-hole of a job he has now._


	4. A: Art Studio Rules

**PART ONE : THE GAME BEGINS**

**ART STUDIO RULES**

The next morning when North Italy awoke, he heard a voice calling his name.

"Italy!" Silence.

"Italy!" Again, silence. "Wake up!"

The voice, incredibly loud, ricocheted inside his head. He couldn't quite place where it was coming from - if it was somewhere in a distant dream, or calling from outside. The windows were half-open; the springtime breeze blowing chill into the room. Fumbling around for blankets, Italy gave a sleepy moan and sigh - rolling over to stare at the vacant ceiling... only to be met with two frighteningly familiar blue eyes and tough hands shaking his shoulders.

"ITALY!"

"Ve, ve, ve..." he said. Immediately, Italy jolted upright, cowering towards the back corner of the room; mind still fuzzy and half within a dream. "I'm sorry, Germany, I'm sorry! Don't shoot! I didn't forget! I didn't forget!"

"Don't talk nonsense!" said Germany. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Italy hung his head. "S-s-sorry!" he stammered. "I wasn't doing anything! I wasn't playing dead!"

"Then what were you doing sleeping on the ground?!"

"Ve..." he said. "I don't know..." He looked at the paint stains that decorated the ground around him, and then he remembered. "Oh! I was busy last night! I pulled an all-nighter after our meeting in the park yesterday…"

Germany nodded. "I can see that."

"Ve..." Italy flashed a smile. He got to his knees, shifted his art supplies to one side and stumbled across the room to his desk. "Oh, I almost forgot! I wrote you a poem!"

"A poem?" Germany said. "Okay, let's hear it."

And so Italy picked up his notepad and began to recite:

_Since we are at loss; we've nobody to blame,_

_And still I'm watching you wallow in your shame._

_Doitsu! Please don't back out now_

_I'm going to explain what rules we allow._

_Firstly together we shall abide_

_No winner or loser, simply work side by side_

_For every game we must have a goal,_

_That is to clean out our houses and our souls._

_We'll go through the rooms one by one_

_Let's start from A to Z, it'll be fun!_

_From top to bottom, for every room undressed,_

_There is one secret we must each confess._

_Come on, you know there is no time to waste_

_Get off the bench and let's make haste._

_The faster we clean, a new future looks bright_

_I surely hope we can put things right…_

It took moments before Germany found a chance to speak – for Italy started babbling and faffing about the room again the moment he finished it. "How is this game you invented going to work?"

He got to his feet and took the broom from its corner, beginning to sweep the floor...

"Not yet!" Italy said from across the room. "You have to spin the dial first!"

He then pushed across the room a wooden something, with a large round circle mounted in the middle. Half of the circle was carefully painted black red and gold, while the other was green, white and red. The painting looked so neat it must have taken him _hours_.

"Is this your way of trying to make money from the sidelines again?" said Germany. How was it possible for Italy to take that much time off his usual waiter hours at the local bistro?

He shook his head. "I was on strike," said Italy. "My work boss is a prick."

Germany sighed. "You're always on strike," he said. "And you didn't say anything about the spinner when you told me what you were thinking about yesterday."

"I'm telling you now," said Italy. He then transferred his gaze to his notepad of instructions."I made this game for just us. So on the first spin, the game begins with each player spinning the dial once. The person who spins the highest number is allowed to spin twice. Then, we add the two spun numbers to equal the limit of cleaning jobs per room."

He looked up again at his ally. "Now you spin first."

"All right, all right." Germany sat on his knees again and spun the spinner, which landed on number ten. He pushed the game board back to Italy, who then spun his number four. According to the game rules that meant up to fourteen cleaning jobs for each room.

"My lucky number fourteen..." said Italy. He looked at the instructions once again and found his spot. "On the second spin," he said. "If your flag colours face the opposite player, you have to ask them a question. So when we start cleaning the room, you have to ask me a question which I must answer honestly. So right now, when we get started, it'll be your turn to ask me something. It's like Truth Or Dare, but without the dare."

"What questions should I ask?"

"It can be anything."

Since Germany won the first round, he was to spin the dial a second time – where his flag colours ended facing Italy. It meant his turn to ask him a question of confession. At that moment Italy briefly turned away to his bucket of white-flags, before then tossing one carelessly at Germany's head.

"ITALY! Don't throw things across the room like that!"

"Ve! I'm sorry Germany! I didn't mean to hit you!" said Italy. "The white flags are for breaks! Breaks are important! When we get tired, we can give up cleaning and go eat pasta or take a siesta…"

Germany shook his head, trying not to sigh. "You and your pasta, Italy..."

He watched as his ally lifted the door and began to make his way down the stair-ladder. "Let's play!"


End file.
